Family Matters

by Rohinton Mistry

While the characters in this book were charmingly drawn, the actual story was a scattering of small bright moments punctuating a very realistic, depressing cycle: parents dictating (or trying to dictate) their children's lives through the very narrow-minded rules of their religion, thus ruining not only that relationship but many more relationships in the fallout.

The rampant corruption in Bombay was shocking to me. It seemed like no one could succeed at anything honestly. If you were honest, you would never get ahead. I think of corruption as something that happens in dark corners and under-the-table, but this was all in the open and impossible to avoid. It makes me appreciate my world, my country a little more. America is by no means perfect, and I tend to dwell on all of its flaws, but every place has its problems. There is corruption, I'm sure, but not nearly as widespread. It is disapproved of and rooted out where possible, whereas in India it is a way of life. And no one here rents space in apartments in 8 or 12-hour shifts just so they can sleep. That I know of.

Whatever parts lay untouched by the corruption were polluted by the rigid and bigoted religious factions. The most poignant part of the book for me was at the very end when the now-15 Jal looks at how his father has gone from a robust, changeable man who brought sunshine with his jokes and laughter and stormy clouds with his anger, to a serene religious fanatic who seems detached from realy life. Perhaps he is hiding from the world that dealt him such a blow: he worked and worked and was honest but got nothing for it, so now he earns nothing and spends his days diving deeper into a world where reality is built on faith. Jal looks sadly at the father who used to be so strong and vibrant and close to him, and sees a stranger who is in the process of repeating the mistakes Nariman's parents made.

At any rate, I enjoyed the book quite a bit because of the characters, though I was disappointed in Nariman. He was so smart, wise, charming, indomitable in his old age, but he was a total pushover in his youth when his parents demanded that he leave the love of his life who was--gasp!-- a foreigner, a non-Parsi, and marry a "good Parsi woman". I guess I would have wished that he defied his family, who he obviously didn't like too much anyway, and leave Bombay for a place where he and his love could live together in peace. Instead he cause himself, his Parsi wife, the foreign woman he loved, and his step-kids a heck of a lot of misery.

Maybe it's realistic, it's life, it's complicated, but it makes me a bit depressed.